Back to Making Sense of the Task Force Recommendations on Mammography
Mammography Survey Results
The week of November 16th, 2009 Breastcancer.org took a strong stand against the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on breast cancer screening. We also fielded a short survey to capture the experiences and opinions of our Breastcancer.org visitors, and not surprisingly, our community was vocal on this issue as well. We received over 3,300 responses. The results were compelling:
69% had been diagnosed with breast cancer, while 5% were either awaiting a test result or at high risk.
52% were diagnosed under age 50 (41% between the ages of 40-49).
Among all respondents diagnosed with breast cancer, routine mammogram (49%) and breast self-exam (37%) were by far the most common tools for initial breast cancer detection. Clinical exam was reported third at only 4%.
Among the subset of women 40-49 diagnosed with breast cancer, initial detection was reported as: routine mammography (45%), breast self-exam (42%), clinical exam (4%), ultrasound (2%).
Mammography detected the breast cancer in 74% of all breast cancer respondents. Among women diagnosed 40-49, mammography detected breast cancer in 73% of respondents.